Analysis: Pumped Péladeau says Parti Québécois is ready to battle for power again

TROIS-RIVIÈRES — Pierre Karl Péladeau declared the Parti Québécois “alive and kicking,” as the party re-launched is election-sovereignty war machine.

Wrapping up a two-day national council meeting where the party adopted a three-year action plan, which it hopes will lead it back to power in the 2018 election, Péladeau said he’s out to beat the Liberals and get Quebec back on track.

“I am more inspired than ever,” Péladeau told 400 péquistes here Sunday. “Like you, I am ready to roll. We are on the road.

“And I am like you. I like winning.”

Adopted behind closed doors, the plan is being kept secret for politically strategic reasons, party president Raymond Archambault told reporters later at a news conference.

It does, however, encompass three general areas of action: long-term vision, openness to others and innovation, PQ director general Alain Lupien noted.

Lupien refused to comment or analyze the party’s disastrous 2014 plan — the minority PQ government of Pauline Marois lost that election badly after only 18 months in power — saying he was not in charge then and today is looking to the future.

But with the election date looming closer and the Liberal government battered and bruised, the PQ and Péladeau think they have a real shot at winning.

“We are making the Liberals sweat,” Marie-Victorin MNA Bernard Drainville said, boasting the opposition has had the government on the ropes. “It’s a beautiful thing. And we won’t let up.”

What’s the plan?

But long before the election writ is dropped, the party faces — again — another of those watershed moments in its 40 year history: what to do about the sovereignty plan?

Péladeau campaigned for the leadership saying Quebecers would know going into the election whether the party would try and hold a referendum — the third in Quebec’s history — but now that he’s leader he has to cross the Rubicon, managing the expectations of a party hungry to see it happen and the voters who are not interested.

This weekend marked the beginning of the intellectual exercise and, above all, internal party debate leading up to a June 2017 policy convention where the PQ will decide what the formula will be.

The existing program, adopted in 2011, vaguely states a PQ government will hold a referendum at an opportune moment, but that ambiguous promise is what got the party in trouble in 2014 because it led to scaremongering by federalist forces.

Even if he’s not expected to endorse any softpeddling of the option this time, Péladeau played it cautious on Sunday when asked for a list of factors or elements that would influence his decision. Gone for now was the famous fistpump for a country that marked his arrival in politics.

“We will let the political commission do its work,” he said referring to the party committee that will oversee the debate on the issue. “I reiterate the fact that in 2018, when we present ourselves for the election, you will have the answer.”

“We aren’t going to tell the members what to do,” added Archambault. “We aren’t going to impede the debate. We aren’t going to to use the remote control on the proposal.”

Support for party is down

But even veteran péquistes concede the party faces a steep learning curve when it comes to the other part of the equation: skeptical voters wearying of the old battle. A Léger poll in February pegged support for sovereignty at about 35 per cent.

Support for the PQ has actually dropped since Péladeau took over.

“There are young people who have not even heard about our big (sovereignty) debates, who have never fought as we did,” the ever candid Champlain riding MNA Noëlla Champagne told reporters. “I have always said we can’t ram sovereignty down someone’s throat.

“We invite them to share our project for a country. But to share a project … it’s like sharing your life with someone else, your spouse. You have to be a bit attractive.”

Enter the rest of the PQ plan, which is to convince voters it can better govern the province.

In fact, most of this weekend’s council was spent playing up Liberal government bungling on everything from the province’s addiction crisis centres to the bailout of troubled aeronautics giant Bombardier.

As many predicted, business and economic issues have emerged as Péladeau’s strong suit. Ripping the government for losing Rona to the Americans and trading off Aveos jobs in return for possible future C-Series jobs, he had three words to describe Philipe Couillard’s administration: incoherent, incompetent and amateur.

The party also moved to mend fences with other splinter sovereignist parties by offering to have another look at the election system that hampers their chances of winning seats.

The issue is a standing beef of Québec solidaire and Option nationale, which — despite pockets of solid popular support — rarely manage to elect MNAs because elections are based on the first-past-the-post system.

Some kind of proportional representation system would give them a fighting chance and create more diversity in the legislature — traditionally dominated by the Liberals, PQ and more recently the Coalition Avenir Québec.

Péladeau has an ulterior motive, which is to try to negotiate peace or at least a kind of non-aggression pact with the parties that — in the last election campaigns — siphoned off enough sovereignist vote to hurt the PQ and prevent it from forming a majority government.

And Péladeau’s strong attacks on the Liberal’s management of the economy are seen as an attempt to woo the 20 to 25 per cent of CAQ voters who are sovereignists but not playing ball with the PQ.

The weekend council meeting was marked by one other striking element that had the PQ brass and handlers grinning: there were no huge controversies and, unlike the last council in Sherbrooke in November, the leader didn’t trip up on the basics.

One MNA quipped that reporters must be disappointed.

“A boring council. Wow.”

Péladeau appeared more confident and relaxed, taking to stage to sing a tune during a party cocktail party Saturday. He did not once snap at reporters.

Party members went easy on him. One factor is they had the impression the party is moving on the sovereignty issue. In the days before the meeting, the sovereignty institute Péladeau promised finally lifted off the pad under the direction of former PQ MNA Daniel Turp.

The same goes for the PQ’s new sovereignty training school.

“We’re delivering,” Péladeau said when asked about the way the party is moving forward. “We’re working with people who are making sure this party is alive and kicking.”

The party also launched a fundraising campaign designed to wrestle its existing $1 million deficit to the ground. And it adopted plans to open up an online boutique to sell PQ promotional goods.

Among key resolutions adopted was one calling on Revenue Quebec to create an international tax evasion unit to curb the use of tax havens. PQ members re-iterated their opposition to companies and individuals using them after Péladeau said he wants Quebec to become a world leader in fighting tax evasion.

The party also re-iterated its opposition to the Energy East pipeline project and said, should marijuana be legalized, a crown corporation should be charged with managing its sale and distribution.

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